{"id":217211,"date":"2026-04-03T08:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217211\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T08:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:33:07","slug":"and-now-we-waitand-waitand-wait-beach-talk-radio-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217211\/","title":{"rendered":"And Now We Wait\u2026And Wait\u2026And Wait &#8211; Beach Talk Radio News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pier-square-Small.jpg\" data-caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"286\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pier-square-Small.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"pier square (Small)\"\/><\/a>            <\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday the Lee County Board of Commissioners will vote on awarding the contract to rebuild the Fort Myers Beach pier. But don\u2019t get your hopes up, despite the county being ready to go, there\u2019s no start date for construction anywhere in sight.<\/p>\n<p>Lee County cannot proceed without permits from the Army Corps of Engineers. County Commissioner David Mulicka has said on Beach Talk Radio, the county could receive the permits next month, next year, or later. Lee County has not received an answer about the permits from the Corps and with the Government partially shut down, everything is at a standstill. Earlier delays were caused by FEMA. Lee County had to wait for the federal agency to obligate build-back funds.<\/p>\n<p>The Fort Myers Beach pier was totally destroyed by Hurricane Ian. Nearly 4 years later, visitors to the iconic structure are still looking at broken wood pilings and hundreds of birds that love to sit on them.<\/p>\n<p>The new pier will be 1,000 feet long and 12 feet wide. That\u2019s 71% longer and 50% wider than the pier destroyed by the storm. An $11.7 million contract will be awarded to RJ Gorman Contracting. The Board of County Commissioners approved over $17 million to build the longer and wider pier back in June of 2024. $11 million for the project will come from Tourist Development Council reserve funds. The balance will be paid by FEMA.<\/p>\n<p>Mulicka was hoping all the pieces could fall into place and the pier would be open in the Summer of 2027. As of today, there is no reliable timetable to see that new pier. We do know that it\u2019s expected to take 12 months to build.<\/p>\n<p>We reached out to several of our contacts at the Army Corps of Engineers. Crickets.<\/p>\n<p>Local journalism is hard work. If you appreciate the most in-depth reporting on Fort Myers Beach, please support what we do\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/beachtalkradionews.com\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/beachtalkradionews.com\/donate\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1775236537713000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1LPZgpVJz4qDDCgXn_n1Ls\">HERE<\/a>\u00a0by Venmo, Zell or PayPal. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday the Lee County Board of Commissioners will vote on awarding the contract to rebuild the Fort&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,8660],"class_list":{"0":"post-217211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-email1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}